{"id":729802,"date":"2026-08-06T22:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T22:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/729802\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T22:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T22:48:08","slug":"deontay-wilder-was-being-lined-up-to-face-british-heavyweight-this-month-i-was-up-for-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/729802\/","title":{"rendered":"Deontay Wilder was being lined up to face British heavyweight this month: “I was up for it”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Deontay Wilder<\/a> is expected to be the opponent for Oleksandr Usyk\u2019s \u2018Last Dance\u2019 in either December or early 2027, but before that fight became available, the American was being mentioned for a fight with a British heavyweight this summer.<\/p>\n

Wilder returned to fight in the United Kingdom for the first time in 13 years when he scored a split decision win over Derek Chisora back in April, stringing together consecutive wins for the first time since 2019, when he reigned as WBC heavyweight champion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, following Usyk\u2019s decision to vacate his three heavyweight world titles, it seems as though the Ukrainian is targeting a showdown with \u2018The Bronze Bomber\u2019 in his final professional bout before hanging up the gloves.<\/p>\n

Before Usyk unveiled plans for his career finale<\/a>, Wilder was being discussed for a potential clash with Johnny Fisher in Istanbul, Fisher told About Boxing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey [Matchroom Boxing] made me a few offers with different things, they were trying to get fights to happen and, for whatever reason, they weren\u2019t materialising. At one point it [the offer] was going to fight Wilder, of course I was up for that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was talks, a couple of weeks before my contract was up, Eddie FaceTimed me with Turki Alalshikh and he said, \u2018Wilder, Istanbul, end of August?\u2019, so I was like \u2018yeah, no problem\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat [didn\u2019t happen because of the] politics of boxing. Sometimes Turki can say one thing and think that it\u2019s going to happen, but through no one\u2019s fault, other things happen in boxing that mean a fight, even when they are announced on social media, [collapses].\u201d<\/p>\n

Fisher was a rising star in the domestic UK scene but suffered a defeat to Dave Allen last May, before returning with a stoppage win against Ivan Balaz in December.<\/p>\n

He has since signed with Dana White\u2019s Zuffa Boxing<\/a>, and on Saturday, September 26, he will debut under his new promotional outfit and headline at the Copper Box Arena in London, for what will be Zuffa\u2019s second event in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Deontay Wilder is expected to be the opponent for Oleksandr Usyk\u2019s \u2018Last Dance\u2019 in either December or early…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":729803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-729802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/729803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}